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“It is unclear whether the appeal to Schumacher came prior to an offer to fellow German Nico Hulkenberg, who Lotus want to fill the vacancy brought about by Raikkonen?óÔé¼Ôäós return to Ferrari on a permanent basis next season.”

“It has been convenient for some of his rivals to treat him like [the bad guy] and they have encouraged it, whether that’s Fernando Alonso taking off his cap and throwing it in the crowd as soon as Sebastian talks on the podium to get a reaction.”

“Plans for a new Formula One track on the outskirts of Moscow took a major step forward Tuesday with the announcement that prolific motorsport architect Hermann Tilke?óÔé¼Ôäós company had been tasked with designing the circuit.”

“There are other things that are less obvious, and you may have Adrian picking something and saying ‘I’m interested in scratch-shield paint’ and we wonder why he would be interested in that because it seems like a cosmetic benefit, but he’s interested in it for its aerodynamic properties. Or there is light-weight magnesium which we have and the team is now using.”

Comment of the day

I still maintain that his performances haven?óÔé¼Ôäót been specially bad considering the circumstances. Neither he nor Button did well, and neither got the chance to do well either. The car was just a complete failure.

It?óÔé¼Ôäós hard to compare drivers when one has been a multiple grand prix winner with the team on his fourth year at the same factory with the new guy that wasn?óÔé¼Ôäót even in F1 when Button joined McLaren.

But (and it?óÔé¼Ôäós a big one) they are replacing him because they feel there?óÔé¼Ôäós a Vettel/Hamilton in the making in the shape of Magnussen, good for them. We?óÔé¼Ôäóre all very vocal about how the best drivers should have the best lineup, and if the rumours are true, then it?óÔé¼Ôäós good news for F1.

On a side note, a bit harsh on Mexican fans who might lose the Mexican GP and just about lost their main driver?óÔé¼Ôäós seat ahead of their second “home” GP.@Fer-no65

From the forum

Happy birthday!

On this day in F1

Happy birthday to Eliseo Salazar who is 59 today. Salazar, the only Chilean to ever race in Formula One, started 24 grands prix in the early eighties, scoring a best finish of fifth for ATS in the controversial 1982 San Marino Grand Prix.

But he is best remembered for this incident later that year when he was attacked by Piquet after knocking the reigning world champion out of the lead while being lapped.

I expect someone from Lotus enquired to see if he was available but that doesn’t mean that he was ever really in their thinking. I’m sure they’ve checked up on lots of drivers to understand who is the best option.

Obviously it reads better to say that they “failed in a sensational approach to bring Schumi back out of retirement” but in reality, they probably just asked around to see who was available and Shumi came back as negative.

Only the Daily mail copied that from BILD @prisoner-monkeys. And while Bild might be a tabloid as well, they tend to get really close enough to real sources for F1 news, so I wouldn’t be surprised if true.
Remember that tweet from German TV pundit Kai Ebel yesterday, that mentioned having met Schumi somewhere 2 days back? He confirmed it, although that did look as if it was in a joking fashion. I think I saw other serious journalists mention that they believed it to be true.

If true, that’s funny… first of all, someone like Schumacher wouldn’t be interested in driving for them, against Grosjean who has been exceptional lately and after an year out of F1 cars. And having “betrayed” Ferrari for Mercedes I wouldn’t think he’d do the same for Lotus…
Also useless, because he has shown since his comeback to be very slow at adapting to car/tyres or simply to get up to racing speed, so I’d dare say even Kovalainen is a better choice. Hulkenberg, if signed for next year, would have been great for both, but a blow to Sauber with who, after all, he has a contract.

Disappointing. Having Schumacher drive in a relatively fast Lotus for two races would surely have been entertaining, but it’s understandable that he rejected the offer.

Interestingly enough though, when Schumacher and Rosberg were teammates in 2012, Michael performed at least as well as Nico, relatively speaking, if not better. Without bad luck for either drivers, Schumacher would have scored more points than Rosberg in 2012.

Now that Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton are teammates, Rosberg is at the very least matching Hamilton in overall performance.

Using deductive reasoning, you can then conclude that Michael Schumacher, even at the age of 43, was at least equally good of a driver as Lewis Hamilton is today. :O

Qualifying battle in 2012 was 10-10, and Schumacher beat Rosberg 7-3 in races which they both finished. Schumi also would have scored more points than Nico without his abysmal luck in the first half of the season.

Rosberg is now matching Hamilton, both drivers are 28 and in the prime of their careers. Schumacher as fast as Rosberg, hence Hamilton, at the age of 43.

Just think about that for a minute…

If Schumacher in his 40’s is as fast as the top drivers in Formula 1 today, then just how fast would Michael Schumacher from the late 90’s have been?

Or one could just as easily speculate that with less bad luck on MS’s side would have come more collisions by him driving into more innocent drivers than he did.

Personally I think the fact that it took him 3 years to just match NR, or maybe if one wants to use MS biased speculation, even better NR some days, shows just how much he needed all the advantages he had at Ferrari in order to compile the numbers that he did.

That’s ridiculously speculative; I can’t even be bothered to dissect it.

More interestingly, I think Hamilton is the sort of person that performs best if he’s thoroughly challenged. Not taking anything away from Rosberg, and Button, the first of whom I highly rate, but I do think that Hamilton is the sort of guy that could match the very best, but might get outscored by a slightly lesser teammate (i.e. Button) for no rational reason at all. I’d argue that motivation, commitment, and a conception of self-worth, even if at a subconscious level, is hugely significant here. People like to ‘write’ Hamilton ‘off’, in terms of perhaps not living up to his potential, but let’s remember that the guy essentially beat (i.e. was much more impressive than) potentially the strongest driver in F1 in his debut year (ergo when he was highly motivated and not so much interested in a rubbish but superficially hot female singer, was focusing on impressing the team and the F1 world in general, and, once he started to give Alonso a run for his money, his ego).

I’m not arguing that Hamilton is better than Schumacher or anything of the kind, but I do think Hamilton’s pure talent to put his foot down properly seems to be at its best when he’s being truly challenged. The human brain is a weird thing…

Thatâ€™s ridiculously speculative; I canâ€™t even be bothered to dissect it.

It is speculative, but not an idea that is snatched out of the blue sky. Schumacher and Hamilton can be directly compared through Rosberg, and despite Lewis being some 16 years younger, he’s looked no better against Nico than Michael did.

As for the rest of your post, that what I would call speculative. Hamilton beat Kovalainen easily at McLaren, so I’m not sure if Lewis’s performances fall off even when his teammate is of lesser ability.

Comparing two competitors on the basis of their record against a third competitor neglects too many variables to make much sense (unless it is completely one-sided).

As to my statement, it was merely a casual observation rather than being meant as an objective assertion. Regarding Kovalainen: fair point. Perhaps it’s not a matter of comparison to a teammate, but an issue of motivation/commitment full stop. As well as Hamilton performed in ’10 and ’12 (and parts of ’13), I do feel like some of the flair is gone, and it’s a much more inconsistent pattern (although, really, the two seasons I mentioned were arguably his most solid seasons, so I don’t really know what my point is…). Perhaps I’m trying to point at a sort of hunger, which both Alonso and Vettel have in abundance, but Hamilton seems to be lacking.

Hamilton was good in his.first 2 years when tyre wear was not a factor. Since then he is still only fast in that scenario (qualifying). Alonso has matured and adapted as a driver whereas hamilton has never improved on his sensational start to f1. vettel, now he is so consistently sensational

@kingshark
“Despite Lewis being some 16 years younger, heâ€™s looked no better against Nico than Michael did”.
In his first year at Mercedes, where it’s Rosberg’s fourth, Hamilton is still outscoring him (and that includes a potential win robbed at Silverstone), and winning in the qualifying battle, which Schumacher didn’t achieve in any of his three years. If that doesn’t look better than Schumacher against Rosberg then I don’t know what does.

Schumacher and Hamilton can be directly compared through Rosberg. Enough said. Rosberg has always had strong qualifying form, but was not in any obvious way better than Schumacher, especially in the races.

I felt that Schumacher had lot of bad luck, but as we can see now, the Mercedess car is very strange and unpredictable in its performance.

If I had to rank the three drivers, based on their overal performance seen in the past 3-4 years, it would be:

We have a direct comparison of Schumacher and Hamilton – karting WC? at Kerpen in 2000/2 sometime. I think Schumacher beat Hamilton that day.. Rosberg too? :) Although Liuzzi beat him Schumi to the World Karting Title, who came second.

This. I’ve been thinking this since Hamilton joined Mercedes. However, I noticed the majority of the comments saying it was a mistake to come back, citing his clumsy accidents. The car was horrible, and Schumacher struggled to adapt until 2012, when he was on it, but lost too many points due to unreliability.

How many other F1 drivers have been able to race as competitively as Schumacher did in their 40’s? I think his comeback was a success, but the team was goin through a hard time.

@petebaldwin I agree with that. I pull for NR moreso than LH but I too have been impressed with how well LH did out of the box. I didn’t doubt he would do it, just thought NR would have more of the upper hand initially. So I think this is a great pairing. NR has a few wins now. LH will push him just by his presence. They will continue to be fun to watch.

I think one of the issues with MS has to have been that he was coming from not just time away from F1, but a situation that could not possibly duplicate all that he had at Ferrari, and that had to have felt to him like F1-lite in a way. In his past not only was his car tailored to him, but if it didn’t feel quite right they could get it feeling right much more quickly, much more often, and more consistently than was possible at Merc. I’m not an MS fan so I was thrilled to see how well NR did once MS was there. It not only didn’t phase him…it seemed to invigorate him. And here he is in a see-saw dual with LH too.

Kovalainen will probably end up racing for Lotus in America and Brasil. But I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again; he’s mediocre at best. He was pretty bad at McLaren, he wasn’t exactly showing Petrov who was fastest and the other teammate he had at Caterham, Trulli, was nearing his 40’s when Kovalainen beat him. I’m getting sick and tired of Kovalainen, he’s had his chance. I don’t know why Caterham seems to think he’ll somehow be faster than VDG and Pic. Lotus’ got reserve/test/third drivers, use them. Plenty of young talent that would dream of a chance to prove themselves like Kovalainen was given the chance all too many times alteady.

I don’t really know what the hype around Heikki is all about either. He was demolished by Lewis, and not much better than Petrov. Sure, he looked good against a prehistoric Trulli, but we don’t really know just how capable those Caterham’s really were.

Frijns would have been a sensible choice of driver to put in the car if Lotus were looking for someone to fill a seat in 2014. If they’ve already settled on Grosjean and HÃ¼lkenberg, then it’s completely understandable that they’d go for someone who has driven the 2013 machinery (albeit at a different team, and only in free practice), who will settle in quickly, who isn’t likely to put the car into the wall, and, given the recent financial struggles of the team, who won’t ask for much compensation.

Should gave said that I agree with Estesark… And a typo on Hekki’s name… My comment as meant for Frijns or Schumacher possibility… I think Kovalainen will fare better than D’Ambrosio did in sub. Personally, I would have loved to see Ant Davidson get a shot, but he’s probably too long out of F1 and has no KERS or DRS experience outside of a simulator…

Frijns isn’t a better choice. Remember that Lotus is looking a replacement for the last two races only. As long as they can’t hire any of the current drivers, Kovalainen is their next best shot. He was a race driver until last season and he’s been driving Caterham this season. Given that there will be no opportunity to test before these two races, I think Kovalainen will most likely gather more points than Frijns (or any other option) would.

@hotbottoms I agree although I understand why some fans might prefer Frijns or Valsecchi to Kovalainen as it’s always exciting to watch a new driver come into the sport. But Lotus has to think pragmatic. Yes, there is no guarantee that Kovalainen will score a lot of points in the next two races. But there is also no reason to think that a rookie, who has spent just a few laps testing an F1 car is better than an experienced race driver, who has outperformed all his team mates during the last three seasons.

I don’t know, since when is Heikki a “solid” consistent driver? In his Mclaren days he was terribly incosistent and at times finished outside of points when his team-mate won the race. Yes, he was consistent in Caterham, but being consistent in a slow car and doing that in fast car are two different things. Max Chilton is consistent in that Marussia, maybe Lotus should being him in so he scores a couple of points each race?

@einariliyev – in defense of Kovalainen, he wasn’t very consistent but that was partly due to him joining McLaren in only his 2nd year in F1. It takes time to become consistent and having now spent 7 seasons in F1, I would expect more from him.

Whilst there are probably rookies out there who would be faster than Kovalainen, they are also much more likely to bin it on the first lap. I would fully expect Heikki to get the car to the finish and with the pace the Lotus has, he should bring home some points.

Red Bull team boss Christian Horner says Sebastian Vettel’s rivals have encouraged the booing of the four-time world champion.
“It has been convenient for some of his rivals to treat him like that and they have encouraged it, whether that’s Fernando Alonso taking off his cap and throwing it in the crowd as soon as Sebastian talks on the podium to get a reaction.http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/formula-one/24922736

…which makes me thing, I’ve never taken a hat off in Vettel’s presence specifically, but I have taken hats off otherwise- does that make me as guilty as Alonso, or do I need to be there when the booing happens? I don’t understand the sacred rules relating to headwear.

yeah, it’s not Alonso’s fault but neither it’s up to Horner and Vettel..

So for me being German (and what a surprise supporting Vettel) it’s simply like that: Vettel is a true race driver giving a **** about being 2nd (even behind his teammate who is also a pure driver who deservers alot of respect!!) while Alonso on the other hand is kind of a politician who is always complaining and trying to force FIA into Ferrari-friendly decisions.

But to be honest at this stage RBR is getting at least the same amount of questionable decisions in their favour. The difference is that their favours (like the change of tyres in midseason) is overall whilst Ferrari is claiming this and that on a decent racesituation.. I would love to see someone standing up to Vettel and make it a real combat for the championship because im getting tired of seeing Vettel in the lead as well!!

Whatever even if i take all my national credibilties back Alo is still acting like a total douchebag off track while Vet is that only on track (which is natural). So what i’m trying to say is that Alonso is definitly not MORE likeable then Vettel..

@kingshark
Alonso more likable than Vettel? Well, I guess that depends on who you are rooting for.

I’m not a fan of either one of them, but for me someone who held his team mate in qualifying, tried to blackmail his team, was part of crashgate and is constantly moaning off track isn’t more likable than someone whose biggest fault is that he has won everything.

@kingshark My Ferrari fan, now I agree with you. Because even if Alonso threw his hat while Vettel was speaking in Monza, that doesn’t trigger booing, just cheering for the Italian team in Italian land. That’s not bad. And lately the booing has just vanished, just as many other trends that, good or annoying, dissapear frequently.

This can go both ways, indeed. But I see more chances for the opposite: by throwing something (cap, glove, helmet etc) at the crowd, that should stop/reduce the BOO because what Alonso throw is definitely more important and would shift the attention instantly. Plus, Monza is Ferrari’s home race, the most important race for them so, as long as a Ferrari driver was on the podium, he had to give more attention to the Monza crowd than every other GP.

This is just ridiculous…. So now they are making out Alonso the source of all the boos towards Vettel?? What a crock of poo!!!! Maybe the crowd feels something entirely different than what they want them to feel?? Has that ever crossed your mind Horner?? You cannot shove something down someoneÂ´s throat and expect them to eat it up… Not evrybody has to worship the ground Vetel walks on! Arrogance is the culprit, plain and simple! Get over it!

So pathetic. Horner sounds like a dictator being contested by the youth of his country and telling “the kids” they’re just puppets of foreign interests…

I understand the fuss, but I don’t get why people try too find exotic explanations for the boos! In my book, non-Red Bull fans boo Seb because they think his wins are mostly down to the car and he’s an undeserving winner; that’s the rational behind the boos, I’m not saying it’s correct assessment of Seb’s wins or if it’s fair, but that’s the root cause.

I think Christian and Sebastian need to get their eager for ‘high school popularity’ needs in check. None of their rivals have intentionally done anything to get the crowd to work against Vettel. To suggest Alonso intentionally threw his cap into the audience to bribe them to boo for Vettel, shows exactly how deluded Chiristian Horner is.

People bee Vettel because they think he’s a dou che bag . As simple as that

yeah – they should let it go. Alonso is known for his mind games and he definitely enjoys his current status, but saying things like this is just dumb and bound to backfire.
Vettel is 26 and at the beginning of his career and in the end he still has plenty of time to win the fans over – latest when he joins Ferrari in 2016.

Looks like Kovalainen is getting the job according to multiple reports. Probably the best Lotus could do under these conditions. Would have liked to seen what Valsecchi could do, but evidently Lotus went for experience.

I agree with Horner. Fans say they hate team orders and want to see more non-DRS racing, but then there’s an outcry when a driver ignores one and battles cleanly for the lead of a race without DRS? Seems hypocritical to me and the only reasoning that makes sense to me is that Webber is popular and Vettel is not.

Random thing, but I was watching Pointless (a BBC game show) today, and they had an F1 fact wrong. For a round where they had to answer facts about Monaco, one was ‘the decade in which it first hosted a Formula 1 Grand Prix.’ They had the answer as the ’20s, which may well be the first Grand Prix, but was long before F1.

@fer-no65 Thankfully nobody elected to answer that one (they had a choice of 6 facts, and only 2 teams to give answers at that stage). I would loved somebody to have answered it and then corrected them, although I imagine if something like that happened they’d just void the question and never broadcast it.

Schumacher bck on F1? I thought Lotus wanted to challenge for points ! Heikki is a much safer, and better bet. Or maybe they wanted to grab the headlines… and get some money… thinking about it, it might have been good for the team’s finances, Heikki’s name won’t grab the front pages of the newspapers of the world…

I still think they should give Maldonado to race in COTA and Hulk in Brazil. I don’t specifically remember how well Maldonado was in COTA last year, but what I remember is Hulk getting impressive races in Brazil (and that slide against Hamilton which was half his fault and half the rainy conditions)

I’m not sure why people are regarding the idea of Schumacher filling in for Raikkonen as so ludicrous. I mean, I think it should have been Valsecchi — but if the choice were between Schumacher and Kovalainen?

Sure, Kovalainen has done some Friday practices, but they were in a Caterham. The last time either driver raced in F1 was last year. And Schumacher is Schumacher. He isn’t “legendary.” He’s legendary. If it were up to me, I’d be asking him, too.

He wasn’t the creme of F1 since 2010, tho. The legend finished its job in 2006 and returned as an old fella with plenty of talent but not the correct circumstances.

Also, he probably hasn’t trained for an F1 ride, nor competed professionally, nor took part of F1 weekends… not even other series, weekends. Appart from the Nurburgring ride he did in last year’s Mercedes.

Plus didn’t he feel sick at simulators and couldn’t use them? Heikki probably did a lot of work in that department and knows these new Pirellis a lot better than Valsecchi, which, IMO, shouldn’t be picked either.

@wsrgo really? I mean, you can play mind games, but “fueling the booing?” I’ve never heard Fernando saying “Vettel disrespected Webber so let’s boo him” or nothing like that. He can invent excuses to diminish Vettel’s talent on the eyes of the tifosi (and hence making him look not so far behind this season) but really, the maximum you can say about him throwing the cap is “breaking the protocol”, as Vettel and Kimi sw3ar1ng on live TV, or Kobayashi trying to give his speech in Japanese first. Minor things (even the sw3ar1ng is IMHO more rude, because of the family hour)

Why do people always say that Raikkonen and Vettel were swearing on the podium? They used the s- and f-words, yes, but it was just used in slang terms for “I don’t care” and “make a mistake” – I would not call that swearing. Swearing is always directed at someone or something. @omarr-pepper

Given that the booing started quite a bit earlier, there’s a clear connection between the reinforcement of your status as an appreciated person and a simultaneous depreciation of the perception of your main rival.

I agree. They have him in their “junior” GP2 team with Renault livery – he wins the GP2 championship. Its the end of the year – really not much chance to gain 26 points on Ferrari anyway. What is the point of a reserve driver then? Just in case someone gets sick on the Friday?

Kovalainen is fine – but suddenly I’m reminded of the JV/Renault experiment in 2004. How’d that work out?